Thursday, March 20

Of DST and Iran

Even the novelty of daylight saving time (DST) did not make me look it up the two times I lost an hour in Spring. I had come to accept it as just another of the US 'time' things like the many time zones, and I hardly thought of it beyond the time required to change my watch. However, when the term appeared in an article about Iran I was surprised and promptly looked it up. As one of his many erratic decisions, Ahmadinejad abolished the use of daylight saving in 2006. However, the Iranian parliament has voted to reintroduce the system that shall come into effect at the midnight of Thursday-Friday.

Today approximately 70 countries use DST. It was surprising to know that even we tried experimenting with it during war times. According to the MSN Encarta the idea was first introduced by Benjamin Franklin in an essay in 1784, and later seriously taken up by a British builder in 1907. The logic behind using this system during World War I was the need to conserve fuel needed to produce electricity. Taking advantage of the extra sunlight in the morning means there is lesser need for electric lightening in the evening, thereby saving energy. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 gives US its current system of daylight saving time.

3 comments:

I think they ammended that 1966 law last year to increase the DST period by 4 weeks - hence starting 2 weeks before in March (2nd weekend of March instead of last) and ending 2 weeks later - 2nd weekend of Nov instead of halloween (last weeknd of Oct)...din't they?...